*** UPDATED x2 *** PPP: Kirk up by four, Brady up by five

Republicans continue to lead the races for both Governor and Senator in Illinois, albeit by close margins. Mark Kirk is ahead of Alexi Giannoulias 46-42 for the state’s open Senate seat and Bill Brady is ahead of Pat Quinn 45-40 for Governor.

There are three main reasons Republicans are headed for big gains across the country this year and the Illinois races exemplify all three of them:

-Independents are leaning strongly toward the GOP. Kirk leads Giannoulias 46-31 with them and Brady has a 45-27 advantage over Quinn with them.

-Republican voters are much more unified around their candidates this year than Democrats are. 87% of GOP identifiers are planning to vote for Kirk while only 78% of Democrats are planning to vote for Giannoulias. In the Governor’s race 86% of Republicans support Brady while Quinn’s only getting 75% support from his party.

-Republican voters are much more likely to head to the polls this year than Democrats. In 2008 Barack Obama won Illinois by 25 points. Those who say they’re likely to vote this year only supported him by 14 points. That’s a strong indication that many of the voters who were a part of the Obama ‘wave’ are staying at home this year.

No matter who wins either of these races Illinois voters will be left with a Governor and Senator that they don’t like. Giannoulias’ favorability is 35/49, Kirk’s isn’t much better at 39/45. Quinn’s approval is 32/54 and that’s a good thing for Brady because voters don’t like him either, giving him a favorability of 39/45.

The presence of the third party candidates in the race seems to really be hurting Giannoulias. In a straight head to head between him and Kirk he trails by only a 46-45 margin. But a fair number of progressive voters who don’t like Giannoulias but can’t bring themselves to vote for Kirk are supporting the minor candidates in the contest.

As for Quinn he’s made an impressive comeback over the course of the campaign and his prospects certainly look a lot better than they did back in the spring and summer. But at the end of the day it’s an open question whether an incumbent Governor with a 32% approval rating can win reelection, no matter how blue their state or weak their opponent.

An Anzalone Liszt Research poll taken for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign committee from Oct. 27 and 28 shows Democrat Alexi Giannoulias leading Republican Mark Kirk 39 percent to 37 percent, a statistical tie since the poll had a margin of error of 4.9 points.

The same poll of 400 likely voters found Libertarian candidate Michael Labo with 4 percent, Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones with 3 percent, and 16 percent of voters undecided. It’s a small shift from the Anzalone Liszt poll taken Oct. 20 to 24, which showed Giannoulias with 38 percent and Kirk with 36 percent.

…Adding… Please, ignore this stupid YouGov “poll.” First, it’s not a poll. It’s an opt-in Internet survey. Second, they only allow the choice of two candidates in each race. This is a multi-candidate race. PPP noted, for instance, that the third partiers were taking votes away from Giannoulias. Either way, though, this is not a poll. Repeat: This YouGov thing is not a poll.

Rep. Mark Kirk doubled his 2-point lead in last week’s Fox News battleground state poll of likely voters, and now leads Democratic candidate Alexi Giannoulias 46 percent to 42 percent.

Giannoulias continues to suffer from Democratic defections to Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones, who drew 6 percent support, including 8 percent of Democrats.

In the state’s gubernatorial election, Republican state Sen. Bill Brady added a point to his margin over incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn from last week’s poll. Brady now leads Quinn by 6 points, 44 percent to 38 percent. In this race, the Democrat is suffering at the hands of two minor candidates, the Green Party’s Rich Whitney and independent Scott Lee Cohen.

Whitney and Cohen are taking a combined 10 percent of the vote, largely from Democrats or liberal-leaning voters. Cohen, a successful pawnbroker, won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor but was chased out of the race by Quinn and others after allegations of domestic violence emerged.

Until pollsters start calling cell phones regularly, none of these things are worth spit. A study earlier showed that the lack of cell phones gave Republicans a 5 point bias. If that is the case, both these elections are a toss-up, and the Republican wave is more like a splash. Tuesday will let us know for sure.

I think the surprise of the night tomorrow is going to be how much smaller Lisa Madigan’s margin of victory is than expected. Polling and anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that Republicans are highly motivated to turn out because of the Senate and Govenor races, and will have no hesitation to vote straight ticket. Independents also seem to be in a highly anti-incumbent mood, and I think the Madigan name hurts her this time instead of helps. A narrow margin of victory will then call into question her viability in the governors race in 2014.

It’s gonna be ugly for the Dems tomorrow night. If these numbers are accurate (remember PPP is more left-leaning) then Foster, Halvorson, Hare, and potentially Bean are in BIG trouble. It will be interesting to see how quickly the collateral damage blows in Rahm’s direction.

DSCC is valiantly standing on the bridge of the Titanic assuring everyone that the ship is unsinkable.

It seems that across the country you could almost hear undecideds break to the GOP in the last 72 hours. The Obama tour has seemed flat and much of the coverage has focused on the desperation element of it. (Here in Chicago, much of the commentary on Saturday was that Obama shouldn’t have needed to be in Chicago in the first place.)

We’ll see how the dust settles tomorrow night, but no matter what happens, the hard work is only beginning.

According to Real Clear Politics, Giannoulias has polled at 45% only once since August. Empirical studies have shown that incumbents or candidates of incumbent parties who don’t crack 49%+ in the weeks leading up to the election usually don’t win, since independents generally tend to break for the challenger. The more recent polls in this race have shown Giannoulias in the 40-42% range, not a great showing for a Democrat candidate in a supposedly deep blue state. I expect Kirk will win by at least 5-6 points.

Hey Rich… there is a new YouGov.Com poll up that has Brady up by 7 and Alexi up by 3. Do you happen to know if upon conducting the survey YouGov polled the races as two way races or more? Also, the poll has been out for 48 hours. Why is only Lynn Sweet and Huffington mentioning it? Is there a slant to yougov’s polling, or something wrong with their methodology? I have never heard of them to be honest.

They can do what they want. I’m not posting opt-in internet “polls” that only include the two major party candidates. No way. Polling is bad enough this year without confusing things with crud like that. Nobody should post those polls or even take them with a grain of salt. Period.

Since I’m very new to yougov and their polling, can you do me a huge favor and kind of walk me through the negatives of how they obtain their info? Obviously there is something VERY flawed, but what exactly is flawed about it? (PS-I’m not defending the poll… I literally have never heard of it and am trying to familiarize myself with it so if I see numbers from them again I will know to just dismiss it).

“Giannoulias and his friends in Lake County have invested significant resources on behalf of one of the third party candidates.”

Al though I know what you’re referring to (the Labano mailers sent downstate) do you know what is funny? Outside of the mailers, there is very little else being done to help Alexi in Lake County.

This past weekend my fiancé and I travelled to Lake Barrington. Along the way we travelled through (in no particular order) Buffalo Grove, parts of Palatine, Lake Zurich, Vernon Hills, Long Grove, and Wauconda. On the way home I, um… got lost to high hell. Hehe. My GPS was at home, and I ended up travelling through Grayslake, Gurnee, and Round Lake Beach before turning myself around and getting back home to Arlington Heights! You know what was funny, however? In all that time, going through all of those cities, riding down some MAJOR streets (Rand Road,45, 83 South, Lake Cook Road) while I saw a good deal of Kirk and Brady signs, along with a TON of Joe Walsh signs, do you know how many Alexi signs I saw? NONE. Now I’m sure they exist and all, but one would think I would have seen at least a few Alexi signs going down the streets I went down. Considering the fact that this race could be decided in your “collar counties,” if Alexi’s effort for self promotion is anything in the remaining “collar” parts like I saw in Lake, that is simply not going to bode well for him.

Re cell phones: pollsters are not (that) dumb. Those who don’t survey cell phones, weight populations with disproportionately more cell phone useage (younger voters, etc.) in their voter estimates. The Pew survey suggests, however, that younger voters who -have- cell phones tend to be a bit disproportionately -more- Democratic, than younger voters overall … That could be, but unless it’s razor-tight, it won’t matter as much, because of overall low turnout in this group.

Undecideds break to the challenger: If the undecideds are equally unhappy with Kirk and Giannoulias, they may not vote, or they’ll throw a vote to Labno or Jones. There can be no confidence that all the undecided vote in this Senate race is going to disproportionately break Kirk’s way.

That all said, if Alexi wins it will be because of superior turnout efforts by the Dems. I believe the polls that say he’s behind, but not by much, so if the Dems can drag every one of their pluses out of the houses tomorrow, you can beat a 2-3 or even 4-point spread on election day. He’s still just in the margin where a win is possible, I’d say.

Counting signs as a measure of candidate support, especially on highways, where they don’t even represent a voter’s conscious expression of support, is a very dicey means of estimating a candidate’s support on Election Day. There are plenty of good reasons to expect a good day for the GOP tomorrow. Highway signs are not one of them.

The Democrats are making scores of phone calls, have the organization and boots on the ground to make it happen for QUINN, ALEXI and in the Tenth Congressional District, DAN SEALS. It will be close, but QUINN, ALEXI and SEALS will win, not the other side’s far out of the mainstreet, extreme right-wingers being BRADY, KIRK and DOLD.

The cell phone polling issue is real. Quinn will win, and it won’t be that close. Kirk-Giannoulias is a toss-up. Madigan will hold his Illinois House majority, suffering losses downstate but performing well, as usual, in suburbs and collar counties. U.S. Senate will remain Democratic; U.S. House is a toss-up with Republicans slightly favored. It will be a surprisingly good night for Democrats. If Democrats can hold the U.S. House, this election will be viewed as a huge victory for them because Republicans fell so far short of expectations.

I think we are in for some headaches tomorrow night. I hope I am wrong, but I think it’s very possible we won’t know who won some of these elections for a while b/c they are too close or b/c recounts will be requested. I can also guarantee that claims and even lawsuits about voter fraud will be popping up as the day progresses tomorrow.

I just know that with all of the nastiness in our state and around the country, tomorrow night could be just the beginning of continued political hell.

I totally agree. QUINN will win, voters are turing off to BRADY left and right to his extreme, right-wing, Tea Party views…including planning to sue the Federal government to block
The President’s much-needed and vital Health Care Reform from being a reality. The people of Illinois are overwhelmingly SUPPORTIVE of our President’s Health Care Reform (no more denials for pre-existing conditions, to name one very imperative reform). WE don’t want a Governor BRADY who will so misrepresent The People by SUING to block Health Care reform ! (Brady has his own health care, compliments of The People of Illinois as a current Illinois State Senator and would retain this as Governor, but the rest of us can just “go eat grass” !) NO WAY, QUINN is who The People will re-elect tomorrow. ALEXI will fare well, too, we don’t want, need or can stomach Mark Kirk as our U S Senator…having him as our Congressman here in the Tenth Congressional District has been BAD ENOUGH ! DAN SEALS will handily beat radical right-winger BOB DOLD, too ! YEAAAH !

from where I have been watching the thing that gets me the most is the past three weeks the dems have circled the wagons and are betting a lot of organized labor.

They have been trying to rally the base from the time the CFL had their meeting with the Gov.

Trying to rally the base from 10/1 to stop the bleeding and just get back in the game says a lot about where they were. Quinn’s attempts at wooing independents has been largely left to the DGA and others trying to scare women and others away from Brady but with out any sort of message of what he would really do to right the ship of state.

But at the same time, the fact that such a rudderless ship of a campaign is still considered in the game, speaks to the candidate Brady is and did not become.

It has appeared for some time that the candidate who steps on their mickey last is the one to loose. For the past couple of weeks Brady has managed to aovid doing this.

When the toughest thing Quinn could bring up was some sort of snafu on a TV buy, it says a lot about what your opponent is grasping for.

Was this the camapaign that many hoped for — NO.

If your a labor democrat or liberal, you’re voting for Quinn. If your a social conservative, you’re voting for Brady. The indepentdents seem to dissillusioned by the dems for the past two years they are ready to turn them out of the highest office in state government and send some others packing to boot.

Neither side ran a great campaign, mush less a good one. Brady ran the type of camapaign he thought he needed to run and win. And it looks like he was right. Quinn ran the type of campaign he’s always ran and looks like he was wrong.

It would have been nice to get into more issues and poke and prod more about indepth answers. But both simply resorted to I’m not him, and did not — did so — did not…… like my two kids.

An neither provided answers to righting the ship of state, fearful that any meaningful answer is turned into a sound bit to eviserate themselves in the next news cycle.